Always Grateful: Ciara’s Story

Always Grateful: Ciara’s Journey to Joy

It’s hard to imagine the devastation that Ciara and David Dierking faced just days before Christmas last year. As they packed up their two little boys and drove from their home in South Carolina, looking forward to a joyful holiday visit with family in Pennsylvania, they had no idea their world was about to be turned upside down.

On December 26, their youngest son, Colton, began experiencing intense neck pain, and Ciara took him to the emergency room. What they thought might be a simple case of the flu turned into a severe case of both coronavirus and strep throat, leading to Colton being hospitalized for immediate treatment.

This was only the beginning.

Ciara’s Fight for Life

While David stayed by his son’s side, Ciara began to feel unwell. On December 28, Ciara dressed in a gray sweatshirt with the words “Always Grateful” scrolled across the front, and her mother-in-law drove her to the emergency room. The decision to go straight there instead of urgent care likely saved her life

Ciara was not only admitted to the hospital, she was immediately sent to the ICU. Within days, what had started as flu-like symptoms had quickly escalated into a life-threatening battle with influenza B, group A strep, and severe pneumonia. Toxins entered her bloodstream, and her body went into toxic shock. Her medical team didn’t expect her to survive.

She Chose Gratitude

Before their trip, Ciara had been reading Choosing Gratitude by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth—a book she carried with her on this unexpected journey. It was as if God had been preparing her heart all along for the challenges that were coming.

Ciara’s mother-in-law had been straightening the room where Ciara and David had stayed over Christmas and found Ciara’s copy, filled with Ciara’s notes and underlined passages. As she read what Ciara had marked, Ciara’s mother-in-law was deeply moved. “Was our good God preparing her?” she wondered.

Ciara’s mother-in-law shared pictures of the marked passages on Facebook:

In those moments when I have found myself gasping for air, feeling that I was going under, I’ve discovered that gratitude truly is my life preserver . . . .

Over time, choosing gratitude means choosing joy. . . . It’s a choice that requires constantly renewing my mind with the truth of God’s Word, setting my heart to savor God and His gifts, and disciplining my tongue to speak words that reflect His goodness and grace—until a grateful spirit becomes my reflexive response to all of life.

The last thing Ciara ever expected as she marked up the pages in her copy of Choosing Gratitude was the unimaginable pain and struggle she experienced as her condition grew more severe and she battled for her life.

Holding on to Hope

A Facebook page was created to share in-the-moment medical needs and combined updates with urgent requests, some as short as a few desperate words: “Please, please pray.” Soon, the toxic shock Ciara experienced led to a rapid onset of dry gangrene (a potentially fatal condition) that spread to her arms and legs, and the doctors faced a staggering decision—amputation of all four limbs. Once again, her family was told she had a critically low chance of survival . . . and yet even when there seemed to be no hope, God was still working.

When it seemed as though everything was being stripped away from Ciara, her faith remained her anchor. Days after she was admitted into the hospital, her husband, David, found her phone still open to the Revive Our Hearts’ 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge.

Ciara continued to fight despite multiple deadly illnesses that spread through her body and endured several weeks of surgery and months of medical treatment in the ICU. Ciara had not been able to physically speak for months, but on March 22, her husband, David, got to hear her voice after eighty-five days. Not long after, Ciara started a thankfulness journal, giving her family three reasons she was thankful each day.

As months went by and Ciara moved from acute care into an acute rehab facility, her mother-in-law continued sharing the passages Ciara had marked in Choosing Gratitude, like this one:

We must remember that He has faithfully met our needs and sustained us by His grace.

A New Normal

Week in and week out, in the continued ups and downs of the journey, her family continued to post the ways that God was carrying them through the difficult healing journey. After 168 days, Ciara’s Facebook page shared the update her family friends had been waiting for: “Ciara is home!!!! Praise the Lord!”

In the last few months, Ciara’s family has experienced additional challenges, but as they’ve adjusted to their new normal, they’ve found reasons for continued gratitude. As Ciara shared in a Facebook post earlier this fall:

Some days are really long and hard, and I miss the life I used to have. I’m so thankful for God’s patience with me and for the strength and peace He provides when I turn to Him. I like what Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says: “Anything that makes me need God is a blessing.”

Today, Ciara is navigating her new normal. Each day presents new challenges, but through it all, she remains anchored to God’s sustaining grace and the gratitude that has carried her this far.